By Honour Bound
by Julia Justiss
Jenna has followed the drum with her father, a British Army colonel, most of her life. Since the death of her mother, Jenna has been her father's chief companion. She has grown to love the adventure of traveling with the regiment, despite the lack of comforts and the constant threat of danger. She has also grown to love her father's second-in-command, Major Garrett Fairchild.Since Garrett Fairchild's fiancée left him for another man, he has gone into battle prepared to die a glorious death that would at least erase the pain of his heartbreak. But the friendship of his colonel's daughter, a woman who is dearer to him than any sister, has lately renewed his interest in life. Can he forget the past and learn to love again?
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£5.59 CHAPTER ONE
By tomorrow morning he might be dead.
A chill shook Jenna as she gazed out the open doorway at the tall form of Brigade Major Garrett Fairchild, the dinner dishes she was helping Sancha clear away rattling in her hands. They might any of them be dead, any one of that little "family" of officers in her father's regiment who for the past few months had marched and fought, dined and laughed with their commanding officer and his daughter.
Jenna glanced across the muddy road to the reassuring figure of her father. Colonel Montague, bridle in hand as he prepared to ride out and inspect pickets, was exchanging some final words with two of his other subordinates, Lieutenants "Heedless" Harry Hartwell and Lord Anthony Nelthorpe.
She ought to be used to it. After India, and then following Papa for nearly four long years in the Peninsula, she should be accustomed to the spur of dread gouging her belly and the haze of fear suspended in her mind like campfire smoke. Even so, apprehension about the battle to come had made it impossible for her to consume more than a mouthful of the chicken Papa's batman had foraged.
Jenna didn't know for sure when Wellington's troops would begin their final assault on the fortified Spanish city of Badajoz, a bastion that had resisted capture so long and so stubbornly. However, if the activity in the encampment today - and the rumors running rampant - did indeed signal an evening assault, Papa would find some time in the next few hours to quietly inform her.
Suddenly she could not wait any longer to discover whether the long-threatened attack would, in fact, come tonight. Depositing her plates on the worn table, Jenna looped her shawl over her shoulders and slipped out to the crude log portico that sheltered the front of the stone house where for the last several weeks they'd been billeted.
But as she walked out, her father leaped into the saddle and rode off, saluting her with his whip as he passed. For a moment, stymied, she hesitated.
Garrett would tell her the truth.
The other officers remained by the brushwork paddock, lighted cheroots in hand. "Major Fairchild," she called over to the group. "Could I speak with you, please?"
The major turned, fixing on her that slightly melancholy blue-eyed gaze that never failed to make her heart lurch. "Of course, Jenna. Shall we go in? This night air is damp as well as chilly."
But realizing he would not speak freely inside with Sancha bustling about, when he reached the portico, Jenna stopped him with a hand to his sleeve.
"Stay here with me a moment." She lowered her voice to an urgent murmur. "Please, Garrett, I must know! Is the attack to be tonight?"
to be continued...
